What's the benefit of making a private constructor and a public getInstance method? I understand why you would make the constructor private: to keep someone from instantiating a class.

There is a reason why Java method modifiers exist. If you call public methods internally and don't understand why, your developers could face major class issues.

Throws IncompatibleClassChangeError at link-time if the resolved method is private. Throws IllegalAccessError at runtime if method lookup finds a private method.

Oracle's plan to eliminate access to sun.misc.Unsafe would have drastic consequences for the Java ecosystem, according to some opponents. Making the API public is a proposed alternative.